South by Southwest not just about music: A look at the film festival

Jeffrey Tambor's acting class was a highlight of the SXSW film festival (AP photo)

Before the midnight screening of his latest film, the horror comedy “John Dies At The End,” director Don Coscarelli wanted to make a statement to the South By Southwest crowd.

“They say Hollywood is the film capital of the world,” he said. “But I say it’s Austin, Texas.”

Given the high number of narrative films and documentaries that made their world, North American or U.S. premiere at South By Southwest (or SXSW), Coscarelli may be on to something.

But it wasn’t always this way.

SXSW began as a music festival — the film portion wasn’t added until 1994, the festival’s eighth year — and many still consider it to be primarily a music festival. But after nearly 20 years on the scene, the SXSW film festival is viewed alongside the likes of the Toronto International Film Festival and the Sundance Film Festival as one of the best in North America.

Aside from allowing audiences to be the first — or among the first — to see many of these films, SXSW brings many of the directors, producers and actors to the festival to engage the audience in a Q&A after the screening.

There were plenty of significant celebrity sightings at SXSW this year. For the advance screening of their big-budget comedy “21 Jump Street,” actors Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum (an Alabama native) came out dressed as police officers in short shorts to amp up the comedic levels.

Another big festival name this year was Mark Duplass (who plays Pete on the FX comedy “The League”), who was present on behalf of both his lead role in “Safety Not Guaranteed” and the world premiere of “The Do-Deca Pentathalon,” which he wrote and produced with his brother, Jay Duplass.

A handful of names went above and beyond the post-screening Q&A as part of SXSW’s schedule of interactive panels. Writer/Director Joss Whedon, whose horror film “The Cabin In The Woods” was the festival’s opening night premiere, and actor Willem Dafoe, promoting “The Hunter,” both sat down for hour-long interviews, and actor Jeffrey Tambor treated his audience to a hysterical 90-minute acting class where he coached budding actors Kate Sheil and Matthew Newton through a brief scene in several different fashions.

Needless to say, SXSW provides a unique experience for film fans, but it’s not just the audience members who step outside the norm.

Matthew Lillard, for instance, is known primarily for his playful roles in “Scream” and the live-action Scooby-Doo films. Lillard recently stepped into a more dramatic role in last year’s “The Descendants.” At this year’s SXSW, Lillard showcased the world premiere of his directorial debut, “Fat Kid Rules The World” — and he earned a Narrative Feature Spotlight Audience Award for the film.

Some critics might mistakenly pigeonhole SXSW for focusing exclusively on “festival films” — i.e. quirky indie comedies and dry indie dramas. However, the range of the festival’s featured films is quite vast.

Take Matthew Cherry’s “The Last Fall.” The narrative drama is a story adapted from Cherry’s own experience of life after the NFL, and the film is comprised entirely of African-American actors, including Lance Gross, a frequent collaborator with Tyler Perry, in the lead role.

“There aren’t a lot of roles out there for black actors,” Cherry said before bringing up a particular Oscar-winning Alabama native: “I’m curious to see what Octavia Spencer does (now).”

Then there’s “The Raid: Redemption,” a brutally intense Indonesian action flick that is light years away from what one might consider to be a “festival film.” The audience in attendance for the film’s U.S. premiere clapped and cheered no less than a dozen times during particularly extreme action sequences.

Of course, the SXSW film festival isn’t just about entertainment — there were a host of documentaries intended to ask important questions and raise important issues.

“Eating Alabama" is about filmmaker and Alabama native Andrew Beck Grace documenting his relocation back to his home state and his attempts to only eat foods that were grown within state lines.

During the post-screening Q&A, Grace displayed a particular passion about his project and the idea that he hopes his film can promote awareness of an important issue, one that hits home for many multi-generation Alabamians: a lack of young farmers.

The SXSW Film Festival, much like its musical counterpart, isn’t just about seeing a film before general audiences can — it’s about a unique experience for the film fans.

Emmett Malloy’s “Big Easy Express,” a concert film about a brief tour featuring Mumford & Sons, Old Crow Medicine Show and Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros that took place on a passenger train, was the festival’s closing film. Immediately after the world premiere screening, members of all three bands crowded the stage to put on a brief performance and share their reactions to the film.

“It was like a trip back in time,” said Mumford & Sons frontman Marcus Mumford. “Some of us got pretty emotional backstage.”

While watching their work premiere on the big screen may have been like a trip back in time for many SXSW filmmakers, for the audience members, it was like a glimpse into the future.

This year, SXSW badge-holders were treated to a diverse line-up of quality films, and after nine straight days of being immersed in the world of the cinema, it’s safe to say that the state of independent film is strong.